“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice raspy and cracked.
The coughing fit after she was extubated was long and painful, making the wound in her stomach clench and flare. He watched, his face pinched to mirror her discomfort as she struggled to settle herself. The medical team had finally cleared the area when it was assured that she’d not torn her wound closures and she could maintain her oxygen levels. They’ll be moving her from the ICU to a private room in an hour or so. Hooked to all manner of monitors, tubes and drains and the first words from her mouth are to ask after him.
“You’re something else, you know that?” he chuckles as he drops into the chair next to her bed.
“You look like you’re gonna pass out,” she whispers.
“I’m okay,” he says. “I think I was holding my breath.”
She nods, her eyes fluttering as she thumbs the morphine button.
Nodding, she closes her eyes and swallows hard. No use in putting on a show, she’s gutshot. She can admit that yes, it hurts and yes, she wants heavy doses of narcotics to make it stop.
“How long was I in surgery?” she asks.
“About 5 hours,” he answers.
She frowns a little at that. The surgeon hasn’t been in to tell her what damage was done, if she got to keep all her vital organs or not. The drugs are starting to kick in, so she really doesn’t care that much.
“Time izzit?” she mumbles.
“A little after two,” he says.
“In the morning?” she asks.
“Yeah, in the morning,” he says, a little chuckle in his voice.
“You should go get some sleep,” she sighs. “That chair looks terrible.”
“I don’t mind,” he says, shifting performatively, as if the chair really isn’t that uncomfortable.
“What about Fellig?” she asks, starting to feel light, her head buzzing pleasantly.
He reaches out, picks up her hand. There’s blood under her fingernails. He smoothes her hair with his other hand, tucks it behind her ear. They’d attempted to clean her up in recovery, but she’d lost nearly half her blood volume between the gunshot and the surgery and there are remnants nearly everywhere he looks, the corner of her mouth, along her jaw and behind her ears.
The surgeon said there was no explanation for why she was alive. The bullet lacerated her renal artery. She should’ve bled out before the ambulance even arrived. She should’ve, but she didn’t. She just didn’t.
“Don’t worry about that right now,” he says, trying to placate her. Maybe trying to placate himself as well.
She nods, shifts restlessly. Her breathing deepens after a while and he’s certain she’s fallen asleep, pulled under with the anchor of trauma. He feels himself deflate, uncoiling after hours and hours of tension. When the word came that she’d been shot, he reacted to so quickly that he dropped his coffee on the floor of the bullpen and took off at such a sprint that papers on the desks nearby flew up in his wake.
The whole way to New York, two words: stay alive. Stayalivestayalivestayalivestayalive…A cyclical mantra of words strung so close that they became a prayer necklace, a secret radio transmission meant only for her, the Scully emergency channel.
And the signal reached her, somehow. Because here she is, breathing and whole. He feels something like gratitude well up, although he knows it’s not to God. He doesn’t believe in God. So maybe he’s grateful to her, for not dying, even though dying really, really hurts. She would know.
“You should go get some rest,” she murmurs, eyes still closed.
“I will, I’ll ask for a recliner when they get you into a room,” he assures her. He watches a long moment, waiting for her to argue, to tell him that she’s fine.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she sighs.
The surprise pushes the first breath of a laugh out of his nose, but it never fully forms.
“Me too,” he says. “Go back to sleep, okay?”
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